Authors: Jason Erik Lundberg
Strange Mammals (16 page)
Wombat Fishbone
The flyers and placards sprout from a multitude of locations all over town, all displaying the same graphic (the iconic walking man featured on Walk/Don’t Walk traffic lights and signs), although the text is different, unique, in each instance: “J. Juniper Jellyfish walks tomorrow,” “J. Lemon Stegosaurus walks tomorrow,” “J. Wombat Fishbone walks tomorrow,” always that same pattern of nonsense words preceded by the initial J. No one knows who plasters the notices on lamp posts, bulletin boards, tree trunks, brick walls, flag poles, shop windows, mailboxes, front doors, and errant animals too slow to avoid coverage, so fast are the scouts, the ahead-runners, quick and silent and invisible, like ninjas.
There have been stories and rumors from other towns, other counties, other states, but it doesn’t feel quite real until your own town is visited, snuck into, invaded. For the flyers are merely the first wave, the warning of things to come: the arrival of the Walkers. All that day, the day before, the cold air runs tense through the town, oozing through the leafless winter branches, sliding down shirt collars. The skies turn grey, as if responding to the news, rendering a flatness to the light and an ominous foreboding to the streets. You may laugh it off, it’s just a fraternity prank, or an activist stunt, or a harmless cult, but you hurry home nonetheless, that prickly feeling at the base of your skull urging you to safety, convincing you that there they are, right behind you, conjuring phantoms from the reptilian section of your brain.
The mayor goes on the local station that night, cheeks pinked by the cold, uncomfortable in his new toupee, suit more rumpled than usual, and he reassures you, all of you, that this is nothing to be afraid of, that we can’t let these strangers come into our fair town and terrorize us, though you see a note of fear in his shivering hazel eyes, in the way that beads of sweat drip down the sides of his face. He does not speak long, wanting to be home himself, and it is with some relief when the station returns to prime time sitcom reruns, or reality-based competition programs, or game shows encased in dazzling lighting schemes and ecstatic applauding audiences, your regular nighttime showcase of entertaining falseness, full of all the beautiful people.
Your dreams are filled with images in monochrome: a concrete house in disrepair, spotted and stained with gray splotches, surrounded by maple and elm, shed of their leaves, extending their skeletal fingers into a sky populated by the skrawks and caws of crows, circling lazily a ghostly form clothed in the robes of an ascetic and surrounded by the crackling blackness of unholy energy, and then the figure stands along the darkened path to the house, more substantial, you can perceive even the rough weave of his garments, and his hands reach up to pull back his hood and reveal his face, to tell you his true name, J. Something Something, but your dream-self recoils, and you scratch and claw your way through an infinite number of oneiric layers until you awaken, breathless, damp, in your own bed. It is an almost involuntary reflex to laugh, to banish the strange dream, to take away its gripping power.
The next morning, the skies still ashen, the colors bleached out of everything by the harsh light that suffuses the streets, you make your way slowly to your office, looking behind you every ten steps or so, passing store after store displaying Closed signs, and only a handful of brave souls wander the sidewalks, chatting and humming to banish the fear and anticipation, as if walking through a cemetery. You unlock the door to your travel agency and slip inside, letting out a breath now that a layer of glass and wood separates you from the outside, from whatever is coming. The work keeps your mind occupied through the morning, arranging flights over the phone, booking package deals with airlines and hotels as far away as Indonesia, filing receipts and reports since your assistant has decided to call in sick, and so the sound creeps up on you, background noise at first, but soon clear and distinct, emerging from the west side of town, and it is the unmistakable sound of more than a dozen men singing.
Naked, we are strong!
You want to march along!
Manly men, come join your kin
And listen to our song!
It is intoxicating, this simple chant, growing closer and louder, progressing ever more near as it approaches eastward, sailing the main street through the town, toward you. The words infect your ears, your bones, your skin, and abruptly your office has become too warm, too stifling, and your clothes too rough and confining. You long to be rid of them, to strip down to your essence, and that is exactly what you do, off come the tie, jacket, shirt, pants, underwear, hurriedly shedding your second skin, the chant pulsing in your chest as you find the words emerging from your own mouth, and you run outside to join your brethren just now passing by, men of middle age: bankers, office managers, computer scientists, engineers, salesmen, high school sports coaches, now accompanied by others, your townsfolk: an accountant, a dealership owner, a bicycle repairman, an ice cream salesman, a pharmacist, a university professor, a gas station attendant, and yes, a travel agent, all marching and chanting and reveling in your maleness, in the communal bond with your fellow men, untouched by the cold winter wind.
You know that it all looks preposterous, absurd, twenty or so men all parading down Main Street in nothing but their shoes and socks, paunched and hairy and out of shape, far from the masculine ideal, the manufactured airbrushed magazine advert image of what a man should look like, glossy, coifed, tanned, muscular, but that all seems beside the point as you step in joyful cadence down the lined asphalt, and although you spy horrified looks from behind the window curtains of the people you interact with every day, your voice grows louder, and stronger, and you truly don’t care how it all appears, because for this one all-too-brief moment you experience a near-nirvanic sensation of communion with something higher, of interconnectedness, of being in the world and of the world, tears in your eyes, loving every single man and woman on the planet, vowing to do all you can to deliver this feeling to others, this sense of being liberated, unconstrained, free.
Air is Water is Air
Out the window, the children screamed and wailed in the throes of play, as only children can, and Gabe switched off the TV. Since arriving in Singapore four days earlier, he’d gotten addicted to the Chinese-language martial arts channel (subtitled in English and Malay), but the current movie, full of exaggerated poses and zoom-in close-ups and melodramatic facial expressions, was too silly even for him. Vanessa Pan, at whose condo he was crashing, was still at work at the translation office, and her two roommates were away on holiday in Thailand and Australia respectively, and so he had the place to himself until 6 p.m. Bored, and so he dug around in his backpack (disgorged of its other contents on the living room floor), extricated his Lonely Planet guidebook and city maps, and looked for something to do.
A crashpad tour through Asia: his brilliant idea of procrastination, to put off the real world for just a little while. To his shame, he had joined the ranks of thirty-something Americans who had done everything expected of them – gone to college, started a career, racked up massive amounts of debt in the consumerist pursuit of “happiness,” gotten married, put down roots – only to become disillusioned by it all. The marriage had turned sour and fallen into the viciousness of divorce, the stuff he owned weighed down his life and made it nigh-impossible to escape, the money owed to creditors occupied his every waking thought. Even after his parents had taken him back into their home to alleviate some of the burden, he felt on unsure footing, as if he were navigating a quickly-cracking iced-over lake. He’d needed a change, some way to lift himself out of drudgery and despair.
The multinational at which he’d toiled, testing new drugs for Big Pharma, routinely brought in temporary workers from its plants in Mumbai, Bangkok, Shanghai, and other big Asian cities, in order to homogenize the testing processes, to ensure that every plant around the globe was working in the exact same way, the pharmaceutical version of Starbucks or McDonald’s. This brought about a wealth of contacts, and Gabe found himself exchanging email addresses with his international coworkers, and promising that he would contact them were he ever in their neck of. He called travel agencies, collected maps, checked out guidebooks from the public library, read up on Asia over the Internet. He made plans.
To his parents’ dismay and outrage—“What about your debts? Your commitments? You’re too old for this kind of irresponsibility. What if you catch malaria or dengue fever?”—he quit his job and announced his sabbatical to the Far East. He sold nearly all of his possessions through Craigslist, paid off one credit card and took a big chunk out of the balance of another, and had enough left over for a three-month journey. He would sleep on the couches and guest beds of coworkers, friends, and friends of friends, curb his expenses, and live as cheaply as possible, vagabonding across the continent. His only unnecessary pre-trip purchase was a trio of oilskin-covered black Moleskine notebooks for jotting down thoughts and observations on his travels, with the niggling idea in the back of his mind that he might be able to turn it all into a book someday.
And what would he do upon his return? Well, he’d figure it out when he got there.
Little did he know that after twenty-four hours and three plane flights, he would land in Hell, or, rather, Singapore; he’d read about the tropicality of the island nation (only a degree above the equator, palm trees, mangoes, humidity to melt your shoes), but it was nothing compared to the physical sensation of being there. Vanessa Pan, second cousin of a quality assurance specialist at his former job, met him on the other side of Changi Airport customs, and his first sentence, before even “hello” or “good to see you” was, “How is it possible that at one in the morning, it’s still so goddamn
hot?”
She shrugged and said, “You get used to it, lorh.”
And so, after he had recovered somewhat from the lethargy-inducing jetlag, she dragged him all over the island: to the Jurong Birdpark, home to thousands of species of tropical birds, and where he was nearly bitten by an annoyed emu; to Kampong Glam, the old Malay section of town, where, at the outdoor restaurant she had chosen for lunch, he was thwarted by every attempt to order something from the menu, and had to settle for fried eggs over rice for two dollars; to Little India’s infamous Mustafa Centre, which at Wal-Mart proportions and prices spanned a four-lane road and offered more items than he had ever seen in his life; to Chinatown, where he was harassed by Indian tailors on every street corner imploring him to, sir, please, sir, buy a new suit, sir. In just three days, he had been exposed to the frustrating diversity of the city-state, the wild consumerism he had been hoping to flee, the overwhelming friendliness, and the fast pace of the relentless city-state.
He had also eaten himself silly, gorging on
laksa
and
satay
and
kway teow
and
mee rebus
and
roti prata
. Fell in love with the magical beverage
teh tarik
, a tea brewed at volcanic temperatures, sweetened with evaporated milk, and then pulled from cup to cup in order to cool it; drunk outside, in the torrid heat.
“The way it’s supposed to work,” Vanessa relayed in her slightly choppy British accent, “you sweat to cool down, and also purge the body of toxins,” but Gabe found himself constantly sweating, unable to regulate his body temperature, his skin red as a cooked prawn. He melted and wilted and complained under his breath, until, on that third night, as he and Vanessa sat on the couch watching the incomprehensibly-titled
Raped by an Angel
, she punched him in the arm, said, “If everything such a goddamn tribulation, what the fuck you come here for, ah?” and stomped upstairs to her bedroom. The next morning, she was gone to work before he had woken, having taken too many days off in a row to act as his tour guide. He’d felt like a shit, although he couldn’t quite figure why she’d reacted so strongly.
And so Gabe now paged through his guidebook, determined to enjoy something on this first leg of his travels, to show Vanessa, a young woman he barely knew, that by way of action he was not a lost cause, or a spoiled American too used to convenience. Singapore was supposed to be his transition city from West to East, easing his way into Kuala Lumpur and Krung Thep and Siem Reap. If he couldn’t get over his culture shock here, at the start, then he might as well head home, something he was in no way ready to do.
In Chinatown, he now read, the recently-completed Buddha Tooth Relic Temple gave tours of the grounds and to the museum upstairs, where the eponymous 2,500-year-old tooth of the Buddha was located. That would do.
He gathered his map and his MRT train guide, patted his pockets for wallet and keys and loose change (all there), and headed out the front door, locking it behind him with the spare key. The condominium compound was a gated community, and all the units faced the public area and swimming pool, where children of all different races played with raucous abandon, splashing in the water, climbing all over the nearby jungle gym, barely avoiding each other on skateboards. Gabe crossed the crowded area to where two young Chinese boys around six or seven years old kicked a shiny new
fútbol
, each wearing superhero-themed tee shirts, one Batman and one Wolverine; at Gabe’s intrusion, the boy at the far end, Batman, stopped abruptly and picked up the ball, huddling it into his body as if afraid it would be stolen from his arms.
“Geddow,” Batman demanded with tempestuous self-confidence. “This myplace, lah.”
Arrogant little brat, Gabe thought, and considered educating him on the term “public space,” but realized it would be a wasted effort. Plus, who was he, this foreigner, this
ang moh
, to tell the youngster right from wrong? Where were the kid’s parents anyway?
He was abruptly overcome with the urge to pat the boy on the head, to assert his dominance over this fierce little warrior telling him what to do. Nothing cruel, like stealing away his ball and punting it into the pool (although he was tempted), just a simple pat on the head. Gabe edged over and raised his hand, chuckling to himself about what a funny anecdote this would make later, but Batman recoiled, stumbled backward over rough clay tile, and got tangled in his own shoes, his eyes and Gabe’s eyes both going wide in horror at the same time as the fierce warrior fell slowly, so slowly, refusing to relinquish hold of his
fútbol
, frozen in his embrace when he could have easily let go and braced for impact, but instead plummeting and twisting, helpless, toward unforgiving surface, landing hard on the left elbow, and Gabe winced in empathetic pain, knowing how much it hurt to get whacked on the funnybone, and hearing a loud crack!, louder than mere impact with the ground, and both Batman and his would-be attacker realizing in the same moment that the arm was broken.
The boy sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, staring hard into space, the air around them frozen with the shock of it all, and then a noise behind Gabe, the boy’s compadre, Wolverine, scuffing a shoe against the clay tiles, broke the spell, and then Batman wailed, held his elbow and howled the unfairness and pain of the universe, the noise cutting through Gabe’s body and echoing off of the buildings into a brilliant cacophony of innocence destroyed. Wolverine ran away, fulfilling that ingrained childlike reaction to flee from trouble, but Gabe was frozen, rooted to the spot by what had occurred. As Batman screamed and sobbed, blurting blurred phrases in Chinese dialect, Gabe fought his own urge to take off, knowing it would look much worse for himself if he did.
After several minutes, Wolverine returned with a trio of compact Chinese women, skin darkened by the intense sunlight, one of whom rushed over to the fallen Batman and cradled him and made reassuring noises. Batman continued to weep silently, comforted by the presence of this woman who must have been his mother, or at the very least a close relative.
The other two women advanced on Gabe, quick articulations and tonal plosives in a language he couldn’t understand, hands and arms gesticulating spastically. One of the women turned to Wolverine and asked him a question; the boy nodded his head and pointed at Gabe, and Gabe immediately regretted his decision to stay. He backed away, hands up in supplication, tried to explain the situation, it was all an accident, no one’s fault really, but the women either didn’t understand or chose to ignore him, and he didn’t even see the slap from the one on the left it came so fast, and then the one on the right tackled him to the ground, a tangle of limbs and skin scrapes from the clay tiles, and the other woman piled on, and then more women appeared out of nowhere, a handful, then a dozen, all grappling with Gabe, pinning him to the ground, someone punched him in the balls and another slapped him in the face repeatedly, and he screamed for help now but no one was coming. He saw Batman’s mother loom in his vision, lifting an impossibly large chunk of broken concrete and then bringing it down on Gabe’s right arm, and then blood and concrete dust everywhere, who was shrieking, would someone shut that person up, and then Gabe realized he was making the horrible horrible high-pitched sound, and then the pain hit him in full, and then he lost consciousness.
~
The bleeping machines woke Gabe up. His eyelids came apart with a crusty snap. He looked around. Someone had thoughtfully brought him to the hospital. Where were his clothes?
His right arm, still attached—he had feared it severed completely from all the blood—encased in plaster, already signed by someone, he couldn’t read who since it was written in Chinese. Maybe it wasn’t a get-well message, but an insult or a curse; that would certainly fit in with what had happened to him so far in this place. There was also a tightness in his chest, but it was only a little uncomfortable. He was only aware of the pain in an academic way; he could tell it was there, but it didn’t really bother him. They must have pumped him full of some excellent painkillers.
Nurses periodically checked up on him, adjusting this, monitoring that, poking him there, but none of them would speak English to him. Wasn’t English the official language of this country? Did they know why he was there? Were they planning to finish him off? He only reluctantly ate the food they brought him.
He must have given Vanessa’s phone number to them at one point, because here she was, telling him about the aftermath of the incident. Batman’s mother had been arrested and charged with assault, but then later let out when her husband paid the fine; apparently, they were very well-connected. None of the other women involved in the attack would implicate the others, even after questioning, and so they were all sent home. The other little boy on the scene that afternoon, Wolverine, came forward, clearing Gabe’s name, assuring the authorities that it had all been an accident; any pending charges against him had been dropped. Gabe suffered from two broken ribs, some testicular bruising, multiple lacerations, and his right arm had been fractured in three places.
“You lucky that’s all they broke,” she said. “Chinese women can be very fierce, especially about their children.”
“I don’t care that they’re fierce. They’re fucking insane, is what! And you’re telling me every single one of them is free and clear, and I’m stuck in the hospital with who knows how many medical expenses stacking up—”
“Don’t have to worry, lah. I contacted the MP of my district. The gahmen going to waive all those costs. I made a good case that it hurt tourism, Singapore’s image to the world.”
“Wow. Thanks. You barely even know me.”
She blushed slightly. “I know you okay.”
“But I’m not going back there. I don’t feel safe at your place anymore.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “They say you can stay here until you ready to leave. More comfortable than my couch anyway. You rest and get better. Get cute again.”
Now it was Gabe’s turn to blush. “All right. Still,” he said, “I was really looking forward to seeing that Buddha tooth.”
~
The following week—during which Vanessa visited every day, their mutual attraction growing with each visit; she signed his cast and translated the previous marked phrase as “broken arm,” as if this weren’t already evident from the cast—Gabe signed the discharge papers shakily with just his fingers, and was released from the hospital. She’d persuaded him to stay an extra few days so that they could properly celebrate his recovery, by visiting the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum on Vesak Day, one of the holiest days on the Buddhist calendar.